Book: Obama aides weighed dumping Biden for Clinton

Oct. 31, 2013
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Vice President Biden speaks during a visit to the headquarters of the National Domestic Violence Hotline on Oct. 30 in West Lake Hills, Texas. President Obama's aides considered dropping Biden from the 2012 ticket, according to a new book. / Eric Gay, AP

by William M. Welch, USA TODAY

by William M. Welch, USA TODAY

President Obama's advisers briefly considered dumping Vice President Biden from the 2012 ticket and replacing him with Hillary Rodham Clinton, a new book on the president's successful re-election campaign says.

The disclosures in the book, Double Down, by journalists Mark Halperin and John Heilemann, were reported Thursday night by The New York Times.

The book says Obama's advisers concluded that replacing Biden with the then secretary of State would not provide enough of a boost to the president's re-election chances to warrant such a dramatic move.

It says the notion was pushed by William Daley, then Obama's chief of staff.

"When the research came back near the end of the year, it suggested that adding Clinton to the ticket wouldn't materially improve Obama's odds," book says. "Biden had dodged a bullet he never saw coming - and never would know anything about, if the Obamans could keep a secret."

Daley told the Times on Thursday that he had wanted to research what such a change would mean for the president at a time, the fall of 2011, when his popularity was at a low ebb. Daley called it "due diligence,'' the paper said.

"I was vocal about looking into a whole bunch of things, and this was one of them," he said.

"You have to remember, at that point the president was in awful shape, so we were like, 'Holy Christ, what do we do?' "

Among other disclosures, the book says Obama came to rely on former president Bill Clinton as an adviser, despite a slow start to their relationship. It said Obama met with Clinton at the home of Hollywood mogul Jeffrey Katzenberg shortly after Obama's poorly received first debate performance with Republican rival Mitt Romney.

The book also identifies what the authors say was the source who told Sen. Harry Reid, D-Nev., the Senate majority leader, that Romney had not paid taxes in 10 years, a charge the Republican denied. The book says it was Jon Huntsman Sr., father of the former Utah governor who was one of Romney's rivals for the GOP nomination.